Extinction

A neck made of stone?a material the Crescent Blade could cut through easily, as easily as a normal blade through bare flesh. With a single, well-aimed stroke of the Crescent Blade, that neck could be severed. As long as the blow was struck by one of Eilistraee's faithful.

Would that really kill Lolth?

Halisstra shook her head.

"Why me?" she asked Uluyara. "Surely Eilistraee could have found a more worthy priestess. You, for example."

"It is not I who was chosen," Uluyara said. Then, after a moment's thought, she added, "You, out of all of those who worship Eilistraee, are unique for the simple reason that you are the only one Quenthel Baenre and the others will trust. If they do succeed in reaching Lolth's domain and you are among them, you'll be in the perfect position to end the Spider Queen's dark reign and release her children from the clinging webs that hold them back from their birthright.

"If it truly is Eilistraee's will, I will try," Halisstra said slowly. Then she realized that the first step in her monumental quest had yet to be taken. "Seyll said the Crescent Blade was lost on the Cold Field. Where is that?"

"It lies about three days' march to the southeast of here, at the edge of the great wood," Uluyara said. "It is a dangerous place. Centuries ago it was a battlefield, and the foul magic once unleashed there permeates it. The ghosts of the dead soldiers who once fought there roam it still?and are at their most dangerous in winter. When the chill of the air matches the chill of the grave they rise to fight again?and sweep away everything in their path."

Halisstra, going over Seyll's message again in her mind, was only half listening.

"Is the Cold Field home to a dragon?" she asked, remembering the warning about a wyrm.

Uluyara shrugged and said, "None has been sighted there, but it is possible. The battle was said to involve dragons. The Cold Field was scoured by their magical breath, and its soil remains infertile to this day. One of these dragons might have laired there in the centuries since."

"How did the Crescent Blade come to be lost?" Halisstra asked. "Seyll said 'she' was carrying it. Who? A priestess?"

The look Uluyara gave Halisstra was a peculiar one. She stared as if she'd suddenly realized something about Halisstra?something of import.

"She who carried the Crescent Blade was a priestess of the first rank," she said. "One of our Sword Dancers. She came, originally, from the same city as yourself. She came from Ched Nasad."

Halisstra nodded. She was surprised to hear that someone from her own city had also wound up at that temple, so far from home.

"What House was she?" Halisstra asked.

"House Melarn."

Halisstra blinked, and asked, "What. . what was her name?"

"Mathira."

Halisstra frowned. She didn't recognize the name, at first?but then a memory bubbled up from her childhood. A memory of the day she'd noticed that one of the portrait busts in House Melarn's great hall was "broken." The chisel work that obliterated the features of the stone head and the name carved into its base had been roughly done, so it was still possible to make out the first letter: an M. When Halisstra noticed the damage, she asked her mother whose bust it had been and how it came to be broken. Her answer was a stinging slap across the face?a slap so hard it had split Halisstra's upper lip. She could still remember her surprise?and the taste of her own blood. Some questions, she'd learned, were better not asked.

Which had made her all that much more keen to have an answer. And so, years later when she had become a priestess, she'd used one of the spells granted by Lolth to satisfy her curiosity. Under the spell's magic, the name on the ruined bust had blazed clearly: Mathira. Discreet inquiries had uncovered a sliver of information about the woman, that she had fallen into disgrace and been forced to flee Ched Nasad a decade before Halisstra was born. What her "traitorous act" had been, however, Halisstra had not been able to discover. Eventually, having reached the end of the thread of family scandal she grew bored and let the matter drop.

"So," Halisstra said, half whispering, "Mathira must have fled Ched Nasad because she'd turned to the worship of Eilistraee."

"And she came here," Uluyara finished for her. "She rose through the ranks of the faithful to become a Sword Dancer, and was the priestess who carried the Crescent Blade onto the Cold Field?and lost it.

And it was up to Halisstra to find it and to use it as Eilistraee intended, to kill Lolth.

It was all too much to be mere coincidence. Halisstra saw the hand of Eilistraee in every step of it. Who else but a goddess could guide the lives of mortals in so subtle a fashion, weaving together a plan that spa

The thought terrified her. At the same time, it also gave her hope that she might succeed. She had to trust in the goddess?even though trust was something she had only just learned. It still came only with difficulty.

One question, however, remained.

"How do I find the Crescent Blade?" she asked.

Uluyara stared up at the moon and for several lone moments said nothing. Then slowly, the words came.

"You have magic that we do not?'dark song magic, you called it. Perhaps that is what is needed to bring the Crescent Blade back into the light."

Halisstra nodded and said, "There is a spell I was learning, before I left. . before Ched Nasad was destroyed. The bard who was teaching it to me said it could be used to locate any object I could visualize. If I'm able to cast it, I might use it to find the Crescent Blade. If, that is, you could tell me where I should begin my search. Where was Mathira when she disappeared?"

"She was last seen in Harrowdale," Uluyara answered. "From there, she was to travel south to Scardale, then on to Blackfeather Bridge. She could hardly go missing along so well traveled a road, and so we assumed she veered from it and became lost. Mathira's business was urgent and perhaps caused her to choose a shorter route?to travel to Blackfeather Bridge in a direct line across the Cold Field, instead of circling around it by road."

Already Halisstra was deciding how to use her spell to best advantage. She'd travel to Harrowdale, orient herself in the direction of Feather Falls, and march in as straight a line as possible, casting her spell every eight hundred paces?the limit of its range.

"How big is the Cold Field?" Halisstra asked, picturing something the size of a large cavern.

"Unfortunately, the Cold Field is widest from northeast to southwest," Uluyara said. "It's open ground?so no more than a two-day march at a steady pace. But it will be far from easy. You'll be lucky to reach the other side of it alive. Luckier still, if the ghosts that inhabit that bleak place haven't driven you mad long before you leave it."

"Won't any of the other priestesses be coming with me?" Halisstra asked.

"Most have already left to search for the yochlol that killed Breena. The one or two who remain have other, equally pressing matters to attend to. I don't know if they can be spared."

Halisstra's eyes narrowed, and she asked, "You don't really expect me to find it, do you?"

"It isn't that, child," Uluyara answered softly. "It's just that some journeys must be taken alone." Her gaze drifted up toward the tree-tops. The singing had stopped. Breena's body had been laid to rest.

The night air was cold, but Halisstra felt a fire begin to smolder inside her.

"I'll find the Crescent Blade," she vowed. "On my own. I don't need help from anyone."

She turned and strode into the forest, back to the shelter she shared with Ryld. Uluyara might not have faith in Halisstra, but there was one greater who did.